Honestly
by Fluff.and.Rainbows
Summary: Virgil hadn't expected it at all. Some all-knowing best friend he was. Didn't even know which way his bro swung... Pre-slash, VR.


**Warning. Homosexuality** by one character, heavily **implied homosexuality** from another. **Mild cursing.**

**Disclaimer. **I couldn't possibly own _Static Shock_. I was, what, like, seven when the cartoon came out? Damn.

* * *

Honestly, Virgil hadn't expected it at all. Some all-knowing best friend he was. Didn't even know which way his _bro_ swung...

He internally flinched. He couldn't call Richie _bro_, not anymore. It just didn't feel right. It wasn't that he didn't think of Richie as his friend anymore; that wasn't it. It...It was, hell, it was confusing.

He really hoped finding out Richie was, shit, _gay_ hadn't warped his opinion of him or something. He didn't want to lose his best friend, his partner in (fighting) crime, his...his..._Richie._

Wait, no, that wasn't right. Richie wasn't his. (That sure would be nice, though...)

Wait, no!

Virgil shook his head quickly and fell back onto his bed. With a groan, he rolled over onto his stomach and kicked off his sneakers. He felt as worn out as he did on a particularly hard night of patrol.

It was three in the afternoon. Patrol hadn't even crossed his mind yet.

All he could think about was Richie's behavior recently. The blond was fidgety. He wouldn't touch Virgil, not even a knuckle bump, their old cure-all handshake. It was throwing both boys off their game, especially when it came to being Static and Gear. They had gotten their asses handed to them by Shiv and Hotstreak just the other night. It had been just a day after Richie had, uh, _come out._

They had hardly talked at school over the last few days, and it'd been a week since the Conversation.

_"Hey, V?"_

_"Yeah, bro?"_

_"Ca-...Can I tell you something?"_

_"Ha ha, sure, man! You know you can tell me anything."_

_"Heh, yeah...Anything. Well, uh, I've been doing some thinking-"_

_"Richie, bro, when are you not thinking?"_

_"V..."_

_"Sorry, sorry. Keep talkin'."_

_"Well, like I said, I've been doing some _serious_ thinking, and, uh, I've...I guess I've sort of...come to terms, finally, with something...kind of important."_

_"Whoa, Rich, you're startin' to scare me here."_

_"Virgil-"_

_"You haven't called me _Virgil_ in a long time, bro...What exactly are we talkin' about here?"_

_"Heh, yeah, well...you see, Virgil, I've finally figured something out about myself..."_

_"And? Don't leave me hangin', Rich, come on."_

_"...I...I'm gay, V."_

_"...We're still being serious, right? You're callin' me V again."_

_"Yeah, I'm serious."_

_"So...you're...gay?"_

_"Yes!"_

_"This isn't a joke or something, right?"_

_"No, Virgil, I'm being completely honest! I'm gay."_

_"...Oh."_

He had the Conversation memorized. He wondered how Richie's super charged, metahuman brain was dealing with it if even his normal, human brain was having problems. Probably ten times worse than he was.

It shouldn't have been that big of a deal. Not that coming out of the closet to your best, closest friend after who knows how many years of denial and secrecy wasn't a big deal, but...Should it really be bugging Virgil so bad? Should it really be affecting him like it was, as bad as it was?

Richie's behavior wasn't the only thing that changed. Virgil's own behavior had changed, too.

_"Hey, Rich, how'd you figure it out?"_

_"Figure what out?"_

_"That you were gay...How'd you know?"_

_"...Can we not talk about it, V?"_

_"...Yeah, sure."_

If that had been a normal conversation, and not something about _the_ Conversation, Virgil would have pestered him into telling. Friends didn't have secrets; Richie could tell him anything, right? Virgil had thought so, anyway.

Then there was what had happened today. Just thinking about it made Virgil feel uncomfortably warm in a particular, uh, _southern area, _one never before associated with Richie. Ever.

...Well, actually, that was a lie.

Even before today, and even before that whole post-secret week, Virgil noticed that he had been thinking about Richie a little differently. He had always thought Richie was his own kind of attractive. Pasty white and nerdy, sure, but he had toned up a lot recently for his Gear costume. Something about needing to look good in a spandex suit; no room for flab in that thing. Exposing his arms had tanned them the lightest bit and dusted them with freckles. Virgil found it oddly adorable, and he had always liked Richie's eyes, that dark almost chocolate colored brown...It reminded him of his own skin. Virgil even liked Richie's weird black eyebrows, blond hair mix up, even though he knew it was natural.

He didn't know if that was normal or not, to find his male best friend of many, _many_ years so attractive while so many other people didn't, and especially while he had very nice, very pretty, very cute female friends always around, too. Virgil even noticed himself being distracted by Richie's mouth. He'd just watch the blond's lips move when he talked and not hear a word the guy said. He knew it wasn't normal for one to be so turned on by watching someone _talk._

...Oh, shit, he just realized he _was_ turned on by watching Richie. Oh. He wondered briefly if thinking like that was what had tipped Richie off to his own orientation. Probably.

Virgil groaned and buried his head into his pillow. Despite how hard he tried to forget about what had happened just that day, he couldn't.

Daisy and Frieda had convinced the two boys to go an early showing of some new movie, some romantic comedy. Neither Richie or Virgil had been all that interested in the movie itself, but they both enjoyed going out in a group with the girls. Halfway through the movie, Daisy _and_ Frieda somehow managed to spill both of their drinks on _both_ of the boys. They had been forced to get up and go to the men's room to wash off Daisy's orange soda and Frieda's blue slushy (especially Richie, who had gotten the majority of the slushy on his sweater.)

_"It's like they coordinated that, man!"_

_"V, somehow, I think they did."_

Richie and Virgil both removed their sweaters without making eye contact with the other. Luckily for Richie, only his sweater had been soaked, not his shirt, so he was able to just mop up the slushy and wash his hands. Virgil, however, had orange soda soaked through both his sweater _and_ his shirt, and he had taken both off. As he looked up, he had made eye contact with Richie's reflection. There was a couple seconds of buzzing tension between the two of them, only a few seconds, but in that time, Richie's face warmed and pinked considerably. Virgil's eyes were eventually drawn to the blond's throat, the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallowed thickly catching his attention.

_"You alright there, Rich?"_

Richie wouldn't look at him then. He quickly finished washing his hands and turned his back on Virgil.

_"Oh, yeah, I'm fine."_

His voice had been hoarse. Virgil felt a spike of concern and something else he chose to ignore. He acted on his concern, catching Richie's shoulder and turning him around before he made it to the door.

_"Really, man, you know you can talk to me. You've been...I don't know, _avoiding me _all week, Richie."_

They made eye contact then, and Virgil felt a sharper stab of - shit, he didn't even want to think about it - _lust_ at the look in Richie's eyes. They were darker than normal, dark and wide behind his glasses. His face was flushed. Virgil opened his mouth without thinking.

_"...Richie, are you...are you turned on?"_

_"Virgil!"_

Richie had almost shoved him away then, an embarrassed sort of flush on his skin rather than an excited one now.

_"N-no!"_

_"You are, aren't you? By what? Is it me? Is it me without a shirt?"_

Richie just walked out.

That had been about an hour ago. Throughout the rest of the movie and the ride home, Richie hadn't spoken to or even so much as _looked_ at him. It was almost physically painful, Richie's discomfort. Virgil had felt it. Hell, even Daisy and Frieda had felt it. Virgil had heard them mutter something about _sexual tension_ once or twice. He had been faintly disturbed by how well that described the situation between him and Richie.

Did that make him gay? Gay for _Richie?_

_

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_**Author's Notes.**

THERE IS NO SEQUEL. I think I'm just gonna leave you guy's hanging on this one, haha.

No, no, j/k, April Fool's. This is probably gonna be a two-shot. Or something.

BUT, HEY. Not dead or anything. And I've gotten into a sort of dusty fandom, here, STATIC SHOCK. I stumbled back across it thanks to, of all things, 4chan. Go figure. I miss this show! I loved it when I was smaller! It's so nostalgic. There's one episode, where Virgil goes back in time and sees his mom before she's killed and begs her to stay where she won't get hurt, but she can't do it. It made little me cry and have to go find _my_ Mama and make sure she was okay, haha. Ah, this show...I don't understand all the HotGear, though. VR, obviously, I'm a fan of it myself, but I want to know where all of the Richie/Francis is stemming from. Hmm.

On a side note, this one-shot's working title was "RICHAAAYYY," after some drawing of him I saw on deviantART, and this entire thing was written while I wasn't paying attention in my biology class over the last two days.

Love to you all, and happy April Fool's day! :D


End file.
